Clay Pots - discouragement

Just like this baby, Sassiya, the Tobo Church is only 5 months old

I have had a sort of discouraging couple of days… I don’t know about you; but I will sometimes take my eyes off of the Lord and put them on my circumstances. I was thinking how it just seems like sometimes you don’t see the growth in people you want to. Many people here in Tobo land are involved in this year’s election campaign and so everything else has taken second fiddle… even our believer’s meetings, and times of prayer. At times I will talk to these people and it seems like nothing has changed, and it gets very frustrating. I was discouraged and asked, “God, when will we see some fruit?” But God gave me a Psalm 127 this morning which I always applied to our physical families, but today I applied it to the “church” family:

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.” I often feel like it is my job to build up the church and to guard them and protect them; but who really is their shepherd and who is the one who will build the church?

“It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” Boy, have I been up lately strategizing and thinking and planning… how much better to just pray and give it to my Father to do?

“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth.” If we have “converts”, they are like children, and children take years to grow and mature. But God’s Word says that we are blessed of the Lord if we have children. So why should I be frustrated when only after a few months I don’t see leaps of growth? I shouldn’t be.

Also, God looks at children as a weapon to continue the fight with the enemy. “They are like arrows..” We are in a spiritual battle, and they too are God’s weapons.

I continue to learn that it is not up to me and my abilities; but it is up to God and his great abilities. This is God’s work and He is going to do it in spite of myself. Why do I fret and worry about the future? Because I am not trusting in the power of God enough, that is why. I need to believe God for the impossible and go out and let him do it through me.

So, as only God can do and as He always does, he has encouraged me with some amazing stories lately, which has shown me that these believers are growing:

Tingon has understood the concept of our identity in Christ, and has given me some great words and terminology to use to explain it. Like, “All the wrath which God had sitting ready to pour on us, he turned and poured on his son Jesus instead.” I really liked how that came out.

Doctor Zango went on a trip recently and came back and said that he heard a preacher down the way during his travels who was telling the people that they needed to follow the law and go to church on Sundays, or they would not get to heaven. He said, “I heard it and I knew it was false. We can go to heaven only if we believe in Jesus and stand on the road of his blood. There is no way we can do those things and get to heaven.” It was so cool to hear him saying that; and then the rest of the believers chimed in and were going on about how it is not what we can do; but only what Jesus did for us.

Also Morisin said this to me, “Before when I didn’t believe, I would pray to God with really long prayers and I would tell him ancestor stories and try to go on for long, long periods of time. But then I heard you teach on prayer, and I am very clear now. I understand that prayer is just talking to God and thanking him for Jesus and what he did. So now I have tried like you said, and I pray short prayers thanking God for Jesus and asking for help for the day; and it is so much easier. I am very happy now.”

I was talking to Kips (Ankl) about Klifford’s wife, because she is saved, and understands everything, but Klifford does not. And Kips said sort of matter of factly, “Well, God will see that a husband’s heart is too hard, so he will work in the wife, and even in the kids; and then possibly later on in the life of that man again after he has seen the change in his wife.” I was pleasantly surprised to hear him say that. He also said that he hoped he had done a good job with me that day on the lesson. When I asked why he said that; he said that he usually likes to wake up in the morning and pray and ask God to help him translate with me… that he will get the right words and get the meaning correct and such; but today he thought he was just going to his garden to work and not come to help me; so he hadn’t prayed first. What a testimony that was to me.

May you be encouraged today that God is very much alive and working in the hearts of His children,
His Clay Pots,
Jason, Kellie, Micah, Sophia, and Malachi Knapp